Asian Sportsbooks Online

The term Asian bookie is used to refer to any online betting site focused on the Asian market or sometimes any bookmaker that specializes in offering Asian handicap betting for football (soccer). Although a large number of Asian bookies are licensed in the Philippines, many of the most reputable are based outside Asia in Isle of Man, a self-governing Crown Dependency of the United Kingdom, and are licensed here by the Isle of Man Government’s Gambling Supervision Commission.

Asian bookies are not only great options for players from Asia, but are also a great alternative to European and UK bookies. In fact, quite a few Asian bookies go out of their way to target European punters including www.188bet.com who offers a UK no deposit bonus. Now if you do happen to live in Asia the reason to choose Asian bookies is because most support your local currency, have banking options for your region and offer betting odds in a format you’re more familiar with. One thing to remember is that in the table below we list the best all around Asian Bookies, but there may be some site sbetter suited to your needs depending on which country you reside in. At the bottom if this page is a list of specific betting guide for various Asian countries.

Asian Betting Site Currencies

At Asian bookies it generally possible to open an online betting account in your choice of Chinese Yuán Renminbi (RMB), Hong Kong Dollars (HKD), Indonesian Rupiah (IDR), Vietnamese Dong (VND), Thailand Baht (THB), Malaysia Ringgit (MYR), Singapore Dollars (SGD), Great Britain Pound (GBP), European Union Euros (EUR), and United States Dollars (USD). It’s important to note that while most Asian online bookies offer USD and HKD none that I know of actually accept players from Hong Kong or the United States. Most restrict these two counties as well as France, Italy and Turkey for legal reasons. They do however openly offer accounts and convenient banking options to other legal gray area nations such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand.

Depositing at Asian Bookies

The deposit methods at Asian bookies vary by country. Resident of China can generally deposit with their Chinese debit card while residents of Indonesia and Malaysia can deposit with their home bank account via either online banking or at an ATM. As you can read on our page Betting Online in Thailand, Thailand residents have a large selection of deposit options. In Vietnam the opposite is true where deposit options are generally limited to Moneygram and Western Union and/or Local-Ewallet. To learn about the e-wallet option visit www.baokim.vn and then click Đăng ký to register an account. For Singapore, UK, and most of Europe e-wallets such as Neteller, Moneybookers and Entropay are available.

Cashing Out at an Asian Bookie

One of the top reasons to wager with Asian bookies is fast free payouts. Most every online bookie I know of focused on the Asian market offer direct bank transfer withdrawals (most often available same or next business day) to players regardless of location. Quite interesting is more times than not this will show on your bank statement as a cash deposit. That’s right; despite often times dealing with a major corporation with hundreds of thousands of accounts, many of these companies send a local runner/agent to a branch of your bank to complete your withdrawal request as a cash deposit! This is a huge plus for anonymity.

Asian Odds Formats

Asian bookies generally support four different odds formats which are decimal odds (sometimes called Euro or European Odds), Hong Kong Odds, Indonesia Odds and Malay Odds. No matter which display format you choose the potential payout on a win is the same; the reason for different display options is so punters can view the odds in the format they are most comfortable with or used to dealing with. In this section I’ll explain each.

Decimal Odds – In this odds format odds are always listed as a positive number, usually with decimals, and represent the total return (stake + win) a winning ticket will pay for each unit staked. For example European odds 1.91 is risk $1.00 to win $0.91. This is because the odds 1.91 mean 1.91 (stake+win) will be returned for each 1.00 risked; 1.00 was your stake so 0.91 is your potential win.

Hong Kong Odds – This one the simplest odds format to deal with. Here odds are always presented in a positive number usually with decimal points. These odds represent how much a bettor will be paid, in addition to stake, for each unit wagered. So for example if the odds are 0.710 you’re dealing with a semi-heavy favorite and will get paid $0.710 in winnings for each $1.00 risked. If the odds are 2.340 you’re dealing with a decent sized underdog and will be paid $2.34 (plus your stake) for each $1.00 risked – this is of course, if the underdog wins.

Indonesian Odds – For anyone familiar with American odds, Indonesian odds are basically the same thing except they use a single digit instead of three digits. For example +134 American is 1.34 Indonesian and -250 American is -2.50 Indonesian. To quickly explain negative Indonesian odds are how much must be risked to win a single unit, so -3.45 odds is risk $3.45 to win $1.00 profit. When Indonesia Odds are positive this how much will be paid in winnings on a single unit stake. So for example, +1.430 in Indonesian odds is risk $1.00 to win $1.43.

Malay Odds – This is the format those outside South East Asia are the least familiar with. Here odds are expressed as either a negative or a positive number and that number is never greater than 1. Unlike all other odds formats that use positives (underdogs) and negatives (favorites) here things are reversed as in negative means underdog and positive means favorite. When the odds are negative this represents how much a bettor needs to risk to 1 unit (example: -0.750 is risk $0.75 to win 1). When the odds are positive this is how much a bettor will win on a 1 unit stake (example: 0.670 is risk 1 to win $0.67).

Again to stress, no matter what odds format you use the payouts are the same. For example, betting odds in decimal format 1.90 is the equivalents of Hong Kong odds 0.90, Indonesian odds -1.111, and Malay Odds 0.90. The difference is in how the odds display, the displayed method does not change the payouts. Now the good news for anyone confused, no matter which of the betting sites you use, prior to confirming your bet you’ll be able to view a confirmation screen that shows amount risked and how much will be paid on a win. If things don’t look right on the confirm screen you can always cancel and try again. For additional help, you can check using our free betting odds calculator.

Asian Bookie Benefits

To recap items already covered first, some of the many benefits to Asian bookies are free bets to UK residents, betting currencies and odds formats clients from Asia prefer, and fast free payouts to your home checking account. Other benefits often include superior odds, live betting, Asian handicaps and betting odds on small markets.

Getting Better Odds – Many Asian bookies operate on lower margins than European bookies. For example on coin flip bets UK bookies often offer odds 10/11 (risk 11 to win 10), where at Asian bookies the same is often offered for 20/21 (risk 21 to win 21).

Live Betting – Typical Asian betting sites are specialist at in-play football betting offering more odds and markets than any of their European or North American focused counterparts.

Asian Handicaps – These are popular in football where draw is a fairly common outcome. The Asian handicap is an alternative to the traditional 1×2 betting offered on this sport. Here a handicap is added to most often eliminate or reduce tie as a potential outcome and to bring the odds much closer to decimal odds 2.0 (even money). In some cases Asian handicaps use the ¼ goal increment. For example betting $1,000 on the favorite of a handicap listed at 1/4 goals (often written as -0.0 / -0.5) is the same as betting $500.00 on -0.0 and $500 on -0.5. The best benefit for the players is Asian handicaps at Asian bookies generally have very low vigorish.

Smaller Markets – At Asian bookies the most popular betting markets are no doubt soccer markets such as the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, and UEFA Champions League football. However here you’ll find a plethora of Asian football competitions such as well very small markets like field hockey from India and other small markets the average punter is left scratching their head wondering how these bookies could possibly handicap this many leagues and competitions. To gain an idea of what I’m referring to navigate though the various sports leagues currently available for betting at 188bet.com.

In this article I covered the many reasons to turn to Asian bookies as an alternative the big name UK and EU betting sites such as William Hill and Ladbrokes. The bottom line is Asian bookies offer better odds, more convenient (and in some cases faster) payouts and more markets for both prematch and live betting. For reasons that many Asian bookies don’t have open affiliate programs many online portals ran by affiliates fail to mention them as a legit alternative. Having read this article you’re now one of the select few that know about this semi-guarded secret, that Asian bookies are the best online betting sites for players from Asia, UK and the rest of Europe to use for their online sports betting.